Ind. Decisions - Court of Appeals issues 1 today (and 7 NFP)

Teaching Our Posterity Success, Inc., (“TOPS”) appeals the trial court’s dismissal of its petition for judicial review challenging a decision by the Indiana Department of Education and Indiana State Board of Education (collectively “the DOE”). We reverse and remand.

The issue before us is whether the trial court properly dismissed TOPS’s petition for judicial review because of TOPS’s failure to file the agency record with the trial court. [ILB: this is an interesting administrative law case] * * *

Thus, in the present case, we are faced with a final agency order that is defective on its face for lacking any statutorily-mandated findings of fact and conclusions of law, as consistently argued by TOPS. Although the better practice would be to timely file the agency record, we conclude that it was not necessary here, where the order was facially defective. The trial court erred in dismissing TOPS’s petition for judicial review.

TOPS also argues that, because of the DOE order’s lack of findings, it should be set aside. We disagree with TOPS on this point. In cases where an agency has failed to enter sufficient findings and conclusions with its final order, the proper procedure is to remand to the agency to provide it the opportunity to make the necessary findings. See Pack, 935 N.E.2d at 1227-28; Stokely-Van Camp, Inc. v. State Bd. of Tax Comm’rs, 182 Ind. App. 91, 94, 394 N.E.2d 209, 211 (1979). We therefore direct that this case be remanded to the DOE to make the necessary findings and conclusions related to TOPS’s removal from the list of approved SES providers.

Conclusion We reverse the dismissal of TOPS’s petition for judicial review and direct that this case be remanded to the DOE for the entry of statutorily-mandated findings and conclusions to accompany its final order regarding TOPS. Reversed and remanded.